(A Few) Congressional Republicans Defy Trump (a Little)
Has the tide turned?
WaPo (“Trump suffers day of significant Republican defections on House and Senate votes“):
Significant numbers of Republicans joined with Democrats in voting against President Donald Trump’s interests on high-profile pieces of legislation Thursday, suggesting his party’s unyielding loyalty to this point in his term has started to splinter.
Earlier in the day, the Senate advanced a bipartisan measure intended to block the Trump administration from conducting further military action in Venezuela. Five Republicans joined every Democratic senator in advancing the resolution, following the White House’s capture of Venezuela’s president, without explicit permission from Congress.
The resolution is expected to get a chilly reception in the House if it passes the Senate, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) unlikely to bring it to the floor. But it gave Senate Republicans an opportunity to come out against continued military action in Venezuela — which Trump and some administration officials have refused to rule out — without congressional approval.
Trump survived House votes to overturn two of his vetoes, which requires two-thirds of the chamber, but at least two dozen Republicans voted with Democrats to defy his will, demonstrating a greater willingness than seen last year to buck their party’s president. Thirty-five Republican lawmakers voted to override Trump’s veto of the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, a bill meant to aid a decades-old Colorado water project, while 24 Republicans voted to negate Trump’s veto of the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act, which codifies tribal land rights in Florida.
After those votes, House Democrats, with help from Republicans, passed a bill to extend expired enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, a measure opposed by both Trump and Johnson. Seventeen Republicans supported the measure, which would need to pass the Senate before becoming law.
Lawmakers voting against their party’s president is common in midterm election years, particularly for vulnerable lawmakers who represent swing districts. Yet the repeated rebukes of the president, and the number of lawmakers defecting, are unusual. And they represent a continued challenge for GOP leaders with limited majorities, who are struggling to corral their colleagues behind the president’s agenda.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said the five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the war powers resolution Thursday were part of a broader trend.
“Public sentiment — in terms of how Trump is behaving as president, what he’s doing as president — keeps sinking and sinking and sinking, and our Republican colleagues realize that,” Schumer told reporters after the vote. “So I think on this issue and other issues you’re going to find our Republican colleagues saying, ‘You know, maybe following Trump is like Thelma and Louise — right over the cliff.’”
Trump responded to the vote by posting on Truth Social that “Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America” and that the Republicans who voted in support of the resolution “should never be elected to office again.”
POLITICO (“Donald Trump can’t count on Congress to have his back any more“) frames it this way:
A cadre of congressional Republicans dealt President Donald Trump significant defeats Thursday — a series of rebukes that demonstrate how his iron grip on Capitol Hill has weakened at the start of a critical election year.
and points to another instance:
And in a surprise move, senators of both parties agreed unanimously to erect a plaque honoring the officers who fought the mob at the Capitol on Jan, 6, 2021 — breaking from Trump’s false narrative about that day.
adding this analysis:
None of the Republicans who voted crosswise with the White House Thursday said they intended to deal a personal brushback to Trump. But several said they were determined to assert congressional authority that many on Capitol Hill fear has withered over the past year.
Sen. Todd Young of Indiana insisted “any future commitment of U.S. forces in Venezuela must be subject to debate and authorization in Congress.”
“President Trump campaigned against forever wars, and I strongly support him in that position,” Young said in a statement. “A drawn-out campaign in Venezuela involving the American military, even if unintended, would be the opposite of President Trump’s goal of ending foreign entanglements.”
Speaking at the White House after the Senate vote, Vice President JD Vance rejected the notion that Trump’s grip on Congress was slipping, saying the GOP opposition was “based more on a legal technicality than any disagreement on policy.”
But the internal GOP dissent came to the delight of Democratic leaders, who are growing jubilant over their ability to highlight the splits and hammer Republicans heading into the midterms.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters “Republicans need to get their act together in terms of their leadership,” saying the party had been badly distracted from addressing Americans’ cost-of-living concerns.
After the war powers vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hailed it as “a critical step” for the chamber in “reasserting its constitutional authority” and pushing back on an imperious president.
Still, there were signs that Trump’s sway over the GOP had not entirely eroded.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), while voting to constrain Trump’s war powers, downplayed the break and reiterated multiple times that he supports the president.
“I don’t take any offense to that,” he said about Trump’s suggestion that he should not be reelected. “I think the president is great. I love the president. … I understand he’s ticked.”
And in a particularly stark demonstration of Trump’s continued sway over the House GOP, most Republicans in the chamber voted with him Thursday to sustain his veto of two bills they had allowed to pass unanimously just weeks before.
One bill benefited the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, which opposed his administration’s attempt to build a vast migrant detention center in the Everglades. Another authorized a water project backed by Colorado politicians who have clashed with Trump, including Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert.
“I am disappointed to see the lack of leadership, the amount of people that will fold, that will cave, that will not take a stand,” Boebert said after the vote. “This had nothing to do with policy. … Folks are afraid of getting a mean tweet or attacked.”
Some House Republicans who opposed the veto override cited White House officials who circled the chamber as the votes unfolded. It was clear they were taking note of the defectors, one GOP lawmaker said. Trump going nuclear on the five Republican senators who had defied him earlier in the day helped convince others to not stick their neck out.
“It wasn’t worth it,” another House Republican said. “It’s not my bill.”
Still, 35 Republicans broke ranks with Trump on the Colorado project while 24 did so on the tribal bill. Two committee chairs voted to override both vetoes.
The signals here are decidedly mixed. Clearly, the overwhelming number of Republican Members continue to see loyalty to the President to be in their best interests. That so many voted against a bill that they had previously voted for rather than override his veto demonstrates that. Additionally, House Members voting for a bill that they and Trump know has zero chance of getting the 60 Senate votes required to pass it into law is comparatively safe.
Still, seeing Congress making even modest attempts to reclaim its war powers and reassert itself as a coequal branch of government is encouraging. With Trump’s popularity in decline and midterm elections coming in eleven months, this was perhaps inevitable. While Trump remains the most powerful party enforcer of any President in my lifetime, he is rapidly approaching lame duck status. It’s only natural that his copartisans start to look to their longer-term future.
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It seems that certain Republicans had as their New Years Resolution to try to get reelected.
It’s noteworthy when former troll/gadfly House members like Lauren Boebert break ranks with the troll/gadfly in chief POTUS and cite their constituents and the Constitution as their reason to do so. Perhaps only mildly encouraging, but encouraging nonetheless.
@Charley in Cleveland: I think it’s pretty obvious women have the cajones these days when it comes to Stinky.
For all the talk about being manly man, I sure don’t see the evidence. MAGA Man wears more make up than I do.
Nixon should be rolling over in his grave so fast, he’s become an energy source.